


Center Cannot Hold

by blueorangecrush



Category: Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Psychics/Psionics, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Blood, Career Ending Injuries, Cast From Hit Points, Concussions, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 00:28:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21290696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/pseuds/blueorangecrush
Summary: Casey can stop the worst things from happening out on the ice.  Sometimes.  He just can't control it, or what it does to him, as well as anyone would like.
Relationships: Casey Cizikas/Matt Martin, Mikhail Grabovski/Nikolay Kulemin, implied Mathew Barzal/Jordan Eberle
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26
Collections: Hockey Big Bang (2019)





	Center Cannot Hold

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to L and M, without whom this would not exist. <3
> 
> Thanks also to [somehowunbroken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken) for the lovely [mix and cover art!](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21272792)
> 
> This fic belongs to the same universe as [Sacrifice the Body](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5057191/chapters/11629561) and [Put Away Childish Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8624266), and takes place from the 2015-16 season through the early part of the 2018-19 season.
> 
> Detailed warnings are in endnotes if needed.

It doesn’t feel right. Not yet.

Barclays Center is a nice enough place in its own way, Casey’s been to plenty of concerts and Nets games there, but that was different. He was just a guest, just an audience member.

That he still feels like a guest on the ice is a problem. He can feel it in the air he’s breathing, the air feels…sterile, like it’s been cleaned up for honored guests. Like he can get a good strong clean breath in, but he still can’t breathe easy.

He’s been spoiled by the Coli. He knows it. Sure, it’s got problems, and that same air he’s missing right now was supposedly full of mold spores and asbestos and who knows what else that would seep into his lungs and kill him, but it was _theirs._ It was breathing in the sensation of home.

He wants Barclays to become home. He gets that it’ll be different. But right now it feels like Barclays doesn’t want to be home.

At least the people still feel like home. The roster was pretty much the same as before, and that was something. Even if Hammer’s apparently talking about seeing if he can get a trade out to the northwest, something about his mom being seriously ill, and how they’ll look into it and meanwhile they’ll help him out with being able to fly out there whenever he’s not absolutely needed for practices or games.

Casey still remembered having to yell at Hammer a few years ago, giving intimate details of his life that were really none of _anyone’s_ business, just to convince Hammer once and for all that Matt wasn’t some kind of weird creep about Casey.

“Nothing happened that I didn’t start, and nothing happened that I wouldn’t finish,” Casey had told him. “And I know you don’t want the details, but if you had them? You’d know that you got just about everything…exactly backwards.”

Things got easier after that. 

Things will get easier at Barclays too, Casey’s sure of it. Convincing a place that you’re okay, that it’s okay for you to be there, isn’t that different from convincing a person.

Besides, the way Casey and Matt and Cal play, it’s hard to judge the atmosphere from informal skates. Their job is to disrupt, to distract, to make it difficult for the opposing team to stay on their game by whatever means won’t get them sent to the sin bin. There’s only so much they can practice that against their own teammates. Casey’s heard all the stories about how back in juniors, Matt had to be told to stop running everyone into the boards in practice, and they’ve all taken that instruction to heart.

\--

The season starts okay – it’s a little surprising when Mat Barzal gets sent back to Seattle after an amazing training camp, and a little worrisome when Jaro lands on injured reserve just before opening night and a kid gets picked up off of waivers from LA to back up their new back-up, but they take their first game to OT anyway, which is pretty good considering it’s against Chicago, and Casey picks up an assist.

That’s more or less the way things continue – they aren’t dominating the league or anything, but they’re playing solid games as a line, as a team, and showing that last year wasn’t some kind of fluke. They’re adjusting. This whole Brooklyn thing is going to be okay.

They can’t win more than two or three games at a time, but they don’t lose more than two or three games at a time, either. And injuries happen, they always do, but that seems like it’s easier this year, too. 

Casey’s been able to help with that, some, he thinks. The staff doesn’t talk about it much, and it’s the usual euphemisms about “patrolling” the ice, enforcer-style (well, that’s really more Matt’s job than Casey’s, but it’s still their line), but when stuff’s getting physical, he can sometimes adjust the impact. It’s a “game of inches” all right, and sometimes those inches are the different between a “clean” hit to the core and one that damages a shoulder, between a skate blade flying up harmlessly and the blade snagging something it _really_ shouldn’t. Casey can’t always do it – Coach Cameron back in juniors was always having to yell at him about that – and it doesn’t always work when he tries, and sometimes _he_ feels the impact of whatever it was he was trying to prevent. But because the echo-injury isn’t “real” it’s usually easy for him to get rid of. 

Cappy doesn’t seem to be very much help here, just tells Casey “do your thing” as if it’s winning face-offs or laying on body checks himself. Whatever. So far it’s working, Brooklyn’s working, and everyone’s happy or at least not freaking out.

Even their media team catches on, and Grabbo and Kulie make a cute video about being Russians adjusting to the Brooklyn hipster lifestyle. It’s fun chirping them and finding extra vintage fisherman gear to throw in Grabbo’s locker or jeans to replace the ridiculously tight skinny ones that Kulie destroyed in the video.

\--

The first home game of 2016 was frustrating even before the hit. They were just getting back from playing Philly on the road, and it hadn’t gone well. Plus, every time the Stars come to play the Islanders, the game is like this – lots of shots, lots of goals, not much defensive anything at all. Not really the kind of game Casey and his line usually likes to play. 

It’s a few minutes into the second period when Demers comes in and hits Cal while he’s already lost his balance and gone down. Casey hears the gasps from the crowd more than anything that’s actually going on the ice, and everything goes gray for a few seconds.

Everything except when he turns to look at Cal, Cal is a red blur. _Fuck. No._

Without thinking, Casey heads for Demers, screaming, getting in his face, still literally _seeing red_ and furious that someone did this to Cal, afraid that Cal will end up out because he left the last game banged-up too, and this is worse, it’s his _head._

Cal goes off for a Quiet Room look-over, and Casey heads back to the bench, still furious. He’s having to remind himself to focus, that winning is always the best revenge, that with Cal off the bench he can’t be taking penalties, that he has to be able to kill them.

Still. “Seeing red” is supposed to be a metaphor. And Casey knows that sometimes what he sees isn’t exactly normal, kind of comes with the territory of the stuff he can do, but this is something new.

The red fades away by the time post-game is done, but things are still blurry, and his head hurts. His head hurts a _lot._

He tries to go to bed, tries to act normal. Can’t sleep, though Matt is sleeping peacefully next to him, none the worse for the wear of back to back games. Everything is louder and brighter and off-key, somehow, and uncomfortably warm.

He stumbles off to the bathroom, sits on the floor, rests his head on the tile wall. Not sleeping but closer to able to rest than he’s been since the game.

Explaining this to Cappy is going to _suck._ Unless he doesn’t have to.

He really hopes he doesn’t have to.

\--

“Z?” Matt’s voice is soft, concerned. “You coming back to bed?”

Casey just shrugs.

“You’re being weird. I’m worried.”

Casey doesn’t know why Matt’s bothering to talk out loud. He doesn’t want to bother with that. _I don’t want you to worry, I want you to fucking HELP._

_Okay, what do you need?_

_Gatorade’s a good start I guess? A blue one?_

Matt’s back with it quickly, opens up the bottle, hands it to Casey and sits on the edge of the tub.

_I know you don’t want me to just worry, so I need to know what’s going on._

Casey can’t put it into words, not even in thought, just a distorted image of Cal hit into the boards while he was down, the mental image warped with bright angry red and sickly grey. 

“Clutter’s fine, though. He got checked, they cleared him to come back, I know it looked bad but he doesn’t have any concussion symptoms…”

Casey turns to look at Matt, tries to roll his eyes, and the motion sets off something that feels like the sound of breaking glass cascading back and forth between his ears. 

“…but you do.”

“Yeah,” Casey says, the first time he’s spoken out loud in this whole exchange. His voice feels rusty, like it’s been days instead of hours since he last used it.

_Stupid question time but…how?_

_I just…we can’t have him out right now. I didn’t think about it, it was like it hit me instead of him I guess? Sometimes…you know._

“Okay,” Matt says, out loud. “What did you tell Cappy?”

“I didn’t,” Casey mumbles.

“If you’re hurt he needs to know, or the trainers, or _someone._ How are you supposed to play like this?”

“I can –“ Casey’s having trouble finding the words through the headache. “What you call it, process it? I brought it in, I can take it out. The head part makes it harder though.” He hates when he has to try to explain this, would rather it just didn’t come up at all. _If it was his shoulder or his leg or something I’d already have dealt with it. _

“You said you wanted me to help?”

“Yeah.”

“How? Besides the Gatorade.”

_Help me stand back up? I’m still kind of dazed._

Once they’re both standing again, Matt asks, “Can you walk?”

“Think so. Stay with me? Balance?”

“Okay. You know I can carry you if you need…”

Casey actually manages a laugh at that. “Thanks but no thanks, this time.”

When they get back to bed, Matt asks, “Do you think you can sleep?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hey…maybe this will help, remember when you had the concussion in Bridgeport and the doctor had you do the coloring sheets? Still have those?”

“Hmm, I don’t know but that’s a good idea.”

Matt wanders off to look for them and after a while Casey thinks he hears the printer running. Sure enough, Matt comes back with a few printed coloring sheets – one really simple, the others more complex – and a pack of colored pencils. “Couldn’t find the books, this good enough?”

“Maybe something to put them on?”

“Oh, right. Yeah.” Matt leaves again and comes back with one of his books.

By the time Casey’s finished the simplest of the sheets, his head feels better.

Two more sheets and things are basically normal. _Thanks hon, now we know what to do if this happens again._

\--

He can’t always stop things like that, though. Not that he isn’t going to try 

Not that he necessarily can stop himself from trying.

He’s starting to wonder if it’s becoming too noticeable, first Clutter and now Hickey who go down with what looks like a bad hit to the head, leave for concussion protocol, and come back absolutely fine.

Maybe not. Everyone’s supposed to be more worried about concussions now anyway. Especially the Islanders right now, with how Grabbo’s been hit and come back, maybe come back too soon, and then gets hurt again and goes back to IR with an “undisclosed injury.”

So it could just be that the Islanders are being a little excessively cautious and encouraging or demanding that their skaters get checked if there is any possibility that they might have taken damage to the head. 

But that’s a balancing act, too – they don’t want to get a reputation for embellishment. There have already been complaints that Cal was diving some of the nights he’s left hurt and managed to make it back. And most of those nights, Casey’s been taking the worst of whatever it is off of Cal – they aren’t actually bonded the way that Casey and Matt are, but they’ve played so much time together in so many situations that it would be harder for Casey to turn off the instincts that can dampen the impact Cal would take, to stop taking any of it on himself. 

\--

They’re in the playoffs. The new building didn’t throw them off their game, and they weren’t just lucky last year. 

Barclays might have its annoying quirks, it might not be the Coliseum, but it might also have been just what they needed to break a twenty-three year streak of failure to get out of the first round if they made it in at all. 

And it happened in a way that was just – typical for them as a team. JT got the goal, both of the goals, and the glory, and the celebration.

Matt set it up. Yes, technically, the way he played it could have been called as a trip. But there was no referee who would be chosen to work a possibly series-winning game who would call a trip with no injury when the team that could advance was down by a goal and had an empty net with one minute to go.

It worked.

And if the energy of a crowd that had waited twenty-three years for one perfect moment wasn’t enough to make the new building theirs, Casey wasn’t sure anything _could._

\--

They split the first two games in Tampa, and Game 3 at Barclays starts off well. Hard-fought back and forth, which everyone expected.

In the third period, Cal gets the goal that puts the team in the lead, and Hicks gets hit into the boards and Casey feels the grey blur jar through him as he fixes it instinctively, because they definitely can’t afford to have him or anyone else out, not now. 

And then at the last minute, the last possible minute, John’s line is out there and miscommunicating badly enough to turn the whole thing over, to let the Bolts tie it up.

To let the Bolts go on to win it in overtime.

Casey watches from the bench, dizzy and sick, as Brian Boyle takes the game away from them.

He stumbles through the usual after-game motions in the locker room, dazed and cold, and sits on one of the benches as the surroundings grey out and sway around him. He thinks he hears Cal say something about “- going into shock, looks like, we need blankets, stack of them.”

_Who are you talking about, do you need help? It’s been a rough game but I think I can still –_

Cal whips his head around to glare at Casey. _I’m talking about YOU, you absolute IDIOT. What the hell are you thinking, you can’t keep doing this to yourself._

_We can’t have anyone else injured, I mean, Hicks is okay, right?_

Cal sighs, and snaps out loud, “Since when are you not someone who could end up out injured?”

“I know how to take care of myself after,” Casey mumbles, exhausted.

“Not like this, you don’t.” Cal looks around the room. “Okay. Leds, get Marty out of here – where doesn’t matter.”

_Why?_ Casey’s not sure whether the thought is his or Matt’s or both.

_Because I don’t want _both of you _in shock. One of you is bad enough._

Hammer comes back with a stack of blankets, and Fransie follows with a stretcher, asking, “Should I get one of the trainers?”

“Not for this. Trainer could make it worse. Where the hell is Tavy, he done with the media shit yet?”

“Soon, I think.”

“Good. Find him and tell him to get his ass in here. Hammer, help me move Z to the stretcher.”

Casey wants to protest that he doesn’t need any of this, that they’re making a fuss over nothing, he’s just a little cold and tired, but as soon as he opens his mouth his teeth start chattering. That’s…not going to make him look like he’s okay, and it’s not going to make Cal any less pissed off. 

When John shows up, Cal snaps, “About time you got done making your excuses to Staple and whoever.”

“What’s your problem? It’s part of the job, you know it’s not my idea of fun…” John’s voice trails off. “Someone hurt? Where are the trainers? I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone had…”

“I don’t want you to say sorry, or to act all concerned, I want you to fucking help, okay? Zeeker’s been taking damage for the rest of us all year, I don’t know how the hell you haven’t noticed that there have been guys coming back with passed concussion checks who really shouldn’t have been okay while he shows up here looking like he hasn’t had a half-decent night’s sleep all season. He’s in shock, it’s not the kind trainers can fix, and if you don’t help we’ll lose him and probably Marty, too, for whatever’s left of this series, you know how this shit works. So fucking help, okay?”

John doesn’t say anything out loud, but he must have responded because Cal quits yelling. Hammer comes back, too, and he doesn’t say anything that Casey can hear, either, but everything goes grey and blurred for a few breaths, and when color and focus start coming back the overpowering chills go away, too.

He opens his mouth to say something again, and this time his teeth aren’t chattering, so he says, “I don’t know what you guys did, but I’m not cold anymore and I can see okay again, so thanks. I think I’m good now.”

“Okay, but you’re still not driving. I’m taking you home and staying with you, and I’m telling Marty to stay with Leds, and if any of this shit comes back you’re going to tell me, got it?”

Casey nods. It doesn’t hurt. He’s tired and sore, but it’s _almost_ the normal tired and sore he’d expect after an unexpected loss in a difficult, critical game. He’s going to be okay. He’s going to have time to recover before the next game.

\--

He’s recovered enough to play the next game, but everything still feels that little bit off. He can’t connect a pass worth a damn, especially not to Cal, and in the end it’s another overtime loss that could have so easily gone the other way.

Then they go back to Tampa, on Matt’s birthday, and they get shut out. Tampa wins the game 4-0 and the series 4-1, proud of what they’ve been able to accomplish while their captain and star goal scorer recovers from a health scare that could have killed him.

Matt tries to stay calm and polite, to the media, to the rest of the team on the flight home, but Casey knows he’s a mess. _Happy birthday, here is the end of your season and the beginning of free agency and contract negotiations. Happy birthday, replaceable goon, why should we give you another contract?_

_Damn it, you’re not replaceable, and you’re not a goon._

_Sorry. _Matt shrugs, sad and helpless.

\--

The one good part of the season ending is Travis. Travis, now that they don’t have playoffs to concentrate on anymore, letting everyone know his mother is stable and recovering, he doesn’t have to try to get home to be with her. Travis saying, “We’ll get them next year and I’m going to be right here with you.”

Travis, choked up and with tears in his eyes, telling the cameras that he had rescinded his trade request. That things were okay now. That he loves the team, that being part of the Islanders is the best thing he’s ever done with his life.

\-- 

The news from Matt’s agent isn’t good. He’s finally got an offer from the Islanders, but it’s so low that it’s clearly intended to shift Matt to the 13th forward spot instead of a regular lineup player. Maybe even put him on waivers and hope someone else will pick him up on a cheap contract for whatever’s left of the two years being offered. Which they probably would.

“I don’t want to sign somewhere else, but – maybe if I go somewhere they actually wants me at least we’ll know? And I won’t end up getting picked up by Vancouver or Anaheim or something?” Matt asks, forcing the words out that he doesn’t want to say.

“I don’t want this either, but…take it to the talk period, see who’s interested.”

Matt nods slowly. Casey takes both his hands, holds on tight. There’s nothing else to say. There aren’t words to fix this.

\--

Detroit’s interested. And Toronto.

Toronto’s pitch is compelling – a solid spot in the bottom half of the lineup, and the chance to be a mentor for some of the best young talent in the league. And that’s before they’re allowed to talk money and term. Once they’re allowed to, it’s four years to the two that Islanders management offered, a higher average salary, a good bit of it up front as signing bonus.

It’s not that Matt wants to take it, or that Casey wants him to. But it’s closer to what Matt deserves, it’s an amazing opportunity, there will be all the years they will have together after hockey is done for them…it’s easy to lose sight of that sometimes.

And Casey’s family is in Toronto, anyway, it won’t be weird if he’s visiting a lot. So there’s that to consider, too.

Toronto’s not giving Matt long to make the decision. Not even enough time to try to get a real counteroffer from the Islanders. If they would even give him a real counteroffer, and at this point Casey’s pretty skeptical about that.

Matt doesn’t want to, and Casey doesn’t want him to, but what the hell else is he supposed to do instead?

\--

Supposedly, Garth had signed Jason Chimera to be Matt’s “replacement.” Or maybe even "upgrade." As if there was any such fucking thing. Casey was going to be professional, he wasn’t going to hold Garth’s bullshit against Chimmer, none of that was Chimmer’s fault. He was going to try to work with Chimmer, to learn from an NHL veteran who had a lot going for him at an age when most players had long since retired.

The trouble was, when they hit the ice together, it just didn’t work. Casey was trying, Cal was trying, they knew Chimmer was trying – but it didn’t _work._

Cappy had even said something to Casey about it, about how in this business, chemistry could only matter so much. And Casey gets it, he’s professional enough for that.

He’s not going to complain. He’s not going to make his job or the coaching staff’s job any more difficult than it has to be, any more difficult than it already is.

But this – this matchup just isn’t working for him. It’s not doing Chimmer any favors either.

\--

They eventually try Casey and Cal with Kulie. It – works. He’s not Matt, nobody else can ever be Matt, but Casey is also not Grabbo, and that’s what makes this arrangement work better than anything else the coaches have tried yet for either of them.

“I’ve played for Team Russia – you know, Malkin, Ovi, those kind of guys, sometimes I got to have them on a line. I’d still rather have Misha than any of them. Doesn’t matter if you’re with the best in the world, they can think the game _better_ but you can’t think it together,” Kulie tells Casey a couple weeks into their working together.

Just…having that out there, it helps. Casey and Cal work with Kulie, play through Lightball and Thirteen and all the other concentration games that help them to work together as a unit.

Or, if Casey’s being honest, Cal is playing drill sergeant, putting them through mental exercises almost as exhausting as the physical. One night on the road, they’re using Casey’s hotel room for their practice, and Cal finally leaves to call his wife and daughter.

Kulie watches Cal go, looking like he’s too exhausted to follow.

“It’s okay,” Casey says. “Stay here.” And he lets Kulie lean on him, leads Kulie over to the bed where he promptly collapses, near to sleep or maybe unconsciousness already.

Casey orders some room service – they’ve _got_ to eat something – and while he waits for it to show up, gets ready to give Cal a piece of his mind.

_What the _fuck, _Clutter? You yelled at me in front of everyone last year when I overextended my abilities, and now I’ve got our linemate in here so worn down that I’m probably going to have to _feed _him, for fuck’s sake._

What Cal sends back is a bit of a confused jumble – he and John go way back, Casey knows that. Everyone knows that. And as one of the guys with a letter, there are leadership meetings and stuff, and it’s – John is always pushing everyone to train more, physically, trying to send that message in the locker room, at team meetings, even at team _parties_ by being careful to keep as much of the food as possible nutrition-plan approved. And Cal’s the best psi on the team, everyone knows that, so it was falling to him to come up with…training…in that regard.

_I’m sorry, Z, _Cal sends eventually. _I guess Tavy’s craziness spilled over into the stuff I’m responsible for. And I knew our line was going to be a mess with Marty gone, so..._

_Yeah, I get that._

Casey’s not upset with Cal anymore, but it seems like Cal’s upset with John, and that worries him a little. If things go bad between them, it’s not like John’s going to be the one to go. And they need Cal here. Casey needs Cal here, losing Matt was bad enough.

Meanwhile, he’s still got Kulie to put back together. 

After the food comes, he asks, “Can you sit up?”

“…think so?” And Kulie does, hesitantly.

He doesn’t have to _actually_ feed Kulie, which is a relief – calamari’s easy enough for both of them to manage for themselves, even drained as they both are.

_You need to stay with someone, tonight, that was pretty rough,_ he reminds Kulie. _It’s okay if it’s not me, but it needs to be someone._

Kulie nods. “You. I mean, if that’s okay.”

It’s…like everything else this season. It’s not right, but it’s the best they’ve got.

And if that means Kulie’s in his room for pre-game naps, and sometimes for rough nights on the road, and he’s about the size and weight Matt would be and Casey’s about the size and weight Grabbo would be, it’s not all bad. 

Matt has his rookies to take care of. Casey has Kulie, and it does help. Maybe more than it should.

\-- 

Toronto comes to Barclays, looking better and more cohesive than they have in years. As the Islanders get ready for the game, Casey’s not sure what’s worse – the sympathetic glances from some of the younger guys, or the reminders from John and Travis that he’s got to treat this like just another game, that there’s no friends on the ice, let alone…well. Anything else.

Hearing that kind of thing from Travis is bad enough, since Casey thought they got past all that stuff years ago. Hearing it from John is outright infuriating. It’s not like they hadn’t _all_ put up with it from _him_ after Mo was traded to Buffalo. Casey knows how to be professional, he can do a better job of it than John did when it was _his_ soulmate that got moved, and it’s only that very professionalism that keeps him from telling his captain that in so many words.

And it’s fine. Casey’d been a bit snakebitten so far this year, scoring-wise, and this is the game where he finally gets his first goal of the season. Maybe somehow it had helped to have Matt in the building, even playing for the opposing team, a shift in the atmosphere towards what feels right and normal.

Whatever. He’ll take it. This is still his team, and he still has every intention of winning this game, no matter what his _feelings_ might be about someone on the visitor’s bench.

He tries not to get too rattled by the “Thank you, Matt” tribute video at the TV timeout, by Matt waving to the crowd in an away team uniform, by the cameras showing the tears Matt couldn’t quite keep back. Casey’s crying, too, grateful that the cameras aren’t focused on him, that Cappy is actually going to be reasonable and not throw him back out on the ice first thing after that video.

It’s really weird watching Matt land in the box after getting into it with Ladder, but well, that’s the kind of thing both of them do. So maybe it’s not that weird. Anyway, he gets through it – _they_ get through it. The game and the media stuff and Matt hanging around to sign autographs because the fans still love him.

Matt gets to come home with him, finally. Just for the night, then they’re flying out in opposite directions – the Islanders to Tampa, the Leafs to Edmonton.

It’s not much, but it’s something. 

It’s proof that he can do his job without Matt propping him up or holding him together. That those things were nice, were wonderful in fact, but weren’t _necessary._ That Casey is worth having on the team in his own right.

\--

In some ways the night together made the days following it worse. The reminder that they had willingly signed on for four years of this. 

_“We” didn’t sign on for four years of this, I signed on for four years of this,_ Casey can still hear Matt thinking, as the airplanes take them further and further apart. _Don’t blame yourself. Nothing you could have done._

\--

The season wears on. People keep getting hurt – there’s only so much Casey _can_ do about that, even if he’s more hesitant than he was before because he knows Cal would fucking kill him – and lines get shaken up.

They still haven’t figured out how best to fit what’s left of the team together, where the new guys should go, so this time it’s Anders on the line with Casey and Cal for a game against the Caps. It’s going okay, until they get into a battle along the boards with the Caps and Casey loses an edge and falls. 

Falls aren’t a big deal. Getting stepped on with a skate blade while you’re down – _that’s_ a pretty big deal. Time does something strange, and Casey sees his wrist, skin split to the bone, and realizes _oh, that’s pretty fucking bad, isn’t it._

He’s seeing the same kind of red and gray around his arm that he’s used to seeing on other people when something’s kicked in and his mind reaches out to keep the worst from happening. _So I can get out of here before I bleed to death, that’s good._

Cal is slamming his stick against the boards, screaming at the refs to blow the play dead. The whistle comes, and a trainer runs out to help Casey off the ice, bring him down the tunnel. 

It could have been worse. When the doctor looks at it, to clean it up and get it stitched, he’s surprised it _isn’t_worse. He sounds like he’s talking against his better judgment, but he does clear Casey to go back into the game, six or seven minutes after Casey left it.

\-- 

Casey’s almost ready to go to bed when the command comes clear through to his mind: _Show me._

Casey blinks, shakes his head to clear it, confused and tired.

_Show me. Get your ass on FaceTime. Or, more important, get your _arm _on FaceTime. I need to see you._

Casey opens his laptop, starts up FaceTime, lets it dial Matt. 

“I had to go through an entire game and the media after and I felt it and didn’t know what was going on,” Matt growls, tired and upset. “I shouldn’t have had to tell you to call me.”

“I’m sorry,” Casey snaps. “I was a little busy _not dying,_ okay, and trying to calm the hell down instead of freaking out and making everything worse. And I knew you had a game tonight out West so I wasn’t sure when to call anyway. But here, I’ve called,” he shifts the camera to show where the cut happened, “they’ve stitched me back up, I was fine to go back in. I know you don’t want me pulling any stupid heroics but this isn’t anything you wouldn’t have done.”

“Yeah, I guess. Fuck, I _hate_ this, though. This is kind of the worst part of this whole different teams ordeal.”

“Worst part, you say that like there are good parts.”

“The good part is I’m actually playing hockey, not living the healthy scratch press box life. And the rookies are cool, it’s fun being the Cool Dad person in the room. But yeah, the rest of it sucks.”

“It does suck. I wish we hadn’t been backed into it like this. At least it’s not Vancouver or Anaheim, right?” Casey knows that that old joke between them is wearing thin, and that Matt being on a West Coast trip while Casey’s healing from an injury that in theory _could_ have killed him definitely makes that worse. But everything is so thick with anger and pain right now, so even a threadbare joke was better than no joke at all.

\--

It sounds great to be able to see the love of your life for Valentine’s day, when fate and your careers conspire to keep you separated for most of the rest of the year.

Much less great when the reason you’re seeing each other is to play a game against each other, when there’s not going to be much time to actually spend together before _or_ after, and when the game is literally the worst game _your_ team’s played the entire season.

Casey’s not sure what he’s more confused about, as far as the game went – that Dougie left Greisser in net to get lit up for six goals against, or that he did finally mercy pull him with less than ten minutes to go.

Greisser doesn’t do much but say “sorry guys…next time?” Or if he does, Casey’s not around to see it – he’s trying to get _whatever_ time he can with Matt before they have to fly back home and the Leafs have to fly to Columbus for a back-to-back.

There’s little time, and even less privacy. Casey overhears Matt yelling at one of “his” rookies that no, they’re not looking for quick blowjobs in a random equipment room, they’re a little more mature than that, and maybe they need to have a Talk later about what or who is making the rookie think this is a good idea.

“Never a dull moment, huh?” Casey asks Matt, laughing.

“The kids keep me busy and out of trouble. Well, depending on the kind of trouble you mean. Out of trouble off the ice, maybe into more of it on because you know, that’s kind of why I’m here.”

“Yeah, I know.” 

This is – Casey’d forgotten just how bad Toronto media is, they can’t _leave_ without being watched. Maybe the rookies had a point about hiding in an equipment room, not that it would exactly be great if the cameras caught them coming out of it.

So. Perfectly normal friendly “joke” gift exchange – Casey giving Matt a book he’d talked about wanting to read, Matt giving Casey a giant peanut butter cup heart.

Some Valentine’s day, huh. And the thing is, it’s not like they were the sort to do a huge celebration of it back when they were both on Long Island, but it sucks to have lost the option to do it, not even just because of the timing but because of the fucking paparazzi that are fucking everywhere in the center of the fucking hockey universe.

\--

It’s one of those “healer, heal thyself” situations. Casey is starting to wonder if there is any connection between how he can sometimes keep other people from getting hurt and how when _he’s_ the one hurt, it keeps on being his hand that gets wrecked, over and over and over again.

The only good part is that when the Leafs come to play the Rangers, Casey’s not on the road with the Islanders, so they get a little extra time together. And of course Casey would rather be uninjured, on the road with his team, and _not_ with Matt.

Not that he isn’t going to take as much advantage of the situation as he can, and not that Matt isn’t going to, well, _take care_ of Casey as best he can.

\--

“I’m a mess,” Matt says, late on the second night he spends with Casey.

Casey gestures with the splinted hand. “Shower's that way, you know that.”

Matt draws a breath, shaky. “That’s – that’s not what I meant. I mean, they’ve got me there because my entire role is to be the good responsible grown-up in the room. And I keep doing all the stuff they need, like, Team Dad, whatever. Keep them from getting hurt on the ice, keep them from getting hurt by the press. All that stuff. And it’s like, sometimes I don’t think I was the right guy for the job? Because I can’t, I’m a _mess_, when the cameras are off and I don’t have you and I _can’t_ have you.”

“Is this since Valentine’s day?”

“Yeah. Yeah…that made it a lot worse. Because they’re chirping me about it, but you might as well be some generic dude I’m messing around with, it’s not like here where Cal would be bugging both of us to get a room or whatever. And…maybe this sounds stupid, but if they don’t know _you,_ they can’t really know me?”

_Part of the whole soulbond thing?_

_Yeah._

\--

It takes the last few games of the season to decide everyone’s fate. The Islanders, Leafs, and Lightning are all fighting for the final playoff spot.

Matt had told everyone that if the Leafs were out and the Islanders were in, he’d come to Barclays in Casey’s jersey.

Instead, Casey’s headed to Toronto, wearing Matt’s Leafs jersey. Matt jokes that he has some tips for the rookies because he’s played the Caps in the playoffs before, so maybe he can help. The Leafs take the Caps to six games, which is better than they were expected to do. Of course, they weren’t exactly expected to be in the playoffs in the first place, so there was that.

\--

Apparently, Islanders management is trying to send a message. The only forwards they protected from the expansion draft were the 30-goal scorer and the two guys with no-move clauses that meant they had no choice but to protect them.

Seeing Matt’s name on the protected list for the Leafs hurts. Not because he doesn’t deserve it – Casey knows he does – but because it makes even clearer just how little Garth Snow gave a shit about everything that Matt actually did for the team, was doing for the Leafs now. Casey’s tried to take over Matt’s “role” in those senses – the friendly, outgoing guy who charms the media, the positive influence on the rookies – and he’s okay at it. 

But not as good as Matt is at it, and nowhere near as good as both of them doing it together could be.

And the constant rumors that Casey’s the one who is going to be going to Vegas are unsettling. He says something to Kulie about it, and Kulie shrugs. “Let them talk. I’m pretty sure they have something else arranged.”

The “something else” turns out to be that for once in his life Garth’s looked at the human side of it all, and sent Grabbo’s contract with extra draft picks and prospects in exchange for a promise that Grabbo won’t actually play again.

Kulie talks to Casey a little bit about it, afterward. “He can’t try to play again, it’s not safe. It’s not safe not just for him, but for me too. The one doctor he saw warned him that if he’s hit again, if it’s bad, it could cause damage for me too. That maybe it already has, a little. Not like a normal concussion but nothing on me heals as fast as it used to and they think it’s not just getting older or whatever, they think it could be that some of what happened to Misha, not healing so fast, that it could be happening to me now too from the bond.”

“I’m sorry,” Casey says quietly. _Sorry doesn’t seem adequate._ Sorry that Kulie and Grabbo have to go through this, sorry that he couldn’t fix it, sorry about everything.

Not sorry that he had Kulie, though. Kulie had made it easier to get through the season without Matt. It was easier somehow, to connect to someone who understood what it was like to have had someone that close right there on the ice, and then to lose it.

\--

At least the offseason feels normal, this year. Matt comes back to Long Island to run his hockey camp and his foundation fundraisers and it’s almost like he never left, except the jerseys he signs have a different logo and number and one of the younger Leafs basically invites himself along to almost everything Matt does. (Yes, it’s Mitch, the rookie who was talking about Matt finding an unused equipment closet to drag Casey into. Matt admits he never _did_ get an answer about if or when Mitch was doing that kind of thing, himself.)

They do all the usual stuff, spend time at the summer cabin with Mark and Nicole, visit family and make an appropriate amount of fuss over Matt’s little nephews, catch some concerts in New York and in Toronto. 

And they sleep better than they had all year, because it turns out it actually _is_ easier to sleep when you and your soulmate are in the same place. 

_Even if he’s a constant blanket hog, seriously, why do you need to steal everything, it’s summer?_ Matt contributes.

_Even if he’s got the air conditioner up so high that it’s like bringing April into July._

_What? Z, you’re a hockey player for fuck’s sake, how do you hate the cold that much?_

_I don’t _hate_ the cold. I love it. Just not when I’m trying to sleep because it’s like being in the rink, it keeps me awake._

Casey notices the room they share at Matt’s place in Toronto is generally kept much warmer than it used to be after that. 

\--

The new season gets off to a decent start for the Islanders. It’s a little weird not having Stromer around, but Jordan Eberle is the latest attempt to find the elusive “REAL winger” for Tavares.

The latest _failed_ attempt. The hoped-for chemistry just isn’t there. Turns out, JT plays just fine with Anders and Bails, and Ebs is exactly the veteran presence that their brilliant rookie needs on _his_ line. They’re working together well – maybe a little too well. Casey’s not going to make that his business unless someone says something to him directly or unless he notices anything on the ice that makes it his business for the safety of the team, but he wonders. And he wonders if he is going to have to be the one who gets the unfortunate job of reminding the rookie that the NHL CBA doesn’t make any provisions for soulbonds, and probably never will. He doesn’t think he’d need to remind Ebs, the guy’s been in the league long enough to be well and truly aware of matters like that. Though if he’d never though of those things applying to him before, that could be a different problem. Maybe he should put a bug in Boych’s ear about that – Boych was certainly familiar with that sort of thing, the not-knowing you were capable of forming that kind of connection with someone and then getting hit with it out of seeming nowhere.

At least Casey’s own line, with Kulie and Cal, is still working. Still not as good as it was – would be – with Matt, still about as good as things can be under present conditions. Casey’s hand has healed properly, they’re winning games, and Dougie’s leadership style now is a lot friendlier than Cappy’s was in the last months before he was fired, so Casey’s feeling pretty good. 

And then Kulie goes down with a shoulder injury, one that Casey somehow can’t do much to shift away from him when it happens. It’s just going to have to be fixed afterwards.

Casey offers to help, of course, with the fixing. He’s not going to leave the surgeons without work to do, of course, but he can try to – what’s the best way to put it? – untangle the muscle and nerve cells nearby, make the surgical repairs a little more straightforward.

“No,” Kulie says softly. “I…thank you, but I don’t want to try.” He concentrates on not moving his head while letting his eyes scan then room and then adds, “This came too close, what if it _does_ get my head the next time? I…I can’t do that to Misha anymore, can’t risk it, not when he stopped trying to recover because of me.”

“So what’s next?” Casey asks.

“So, the doctors will look, they will probably say it will be long-term, maybe I will come back and play a few last games depending how the season goes, or maybe I just stay on injured reserve. Our contracts are done after, so probably we go back and settle with our families.”

Casey remembered Kulie telling him that he and Grabbo had each married women who were bonded to each other – it made going back home to Russia in the off-season, and now, at the end of their North American careers, a lot easier for all of them. Two couples who were all close friends, and their children – seems perfectly normal.

After Kulie sees the doctors, they tell him the timeline is six months, taking him into April. Maybe those last few games would be in the playoffs. If they make the playoffs. They _should_ make the playoffs, it seems too soon to think about them missing again like they did last year, and they’ve got a rookie who’s the talk of the league already. 

It’s their star player and captain’s contract year. He’s going to be motivated by that, going to play lights-out so he can cash in. Isn’t that how it’s supposed to work? 

\--

However it’s supposed to work, Casey’s pretty sure, is nothing like the rest of the season that happens. 

JT and Bails get picked for the All-Star game. Barzy becomes the runaway favorite for the Calder halfway through the season, and it’s not even close. Anders is the first Islander in decades to pull off a 40-goal season.

And they keep losing games. 5-4, 6-5, even 7-6. Casey’s not even sure what feels worse anymore, the games he’s sidelined with yet another injury to his hand, or the games he’s in that he can’t fucking do anything about. He plays the way he always has, does the best he can to kill penalties and win face-offs and generally be defensively responsible, create “chaos” and interfere with the opposing team’s ability to connect passes or execute their game plan. But Dougie’s new “let the goalies handle everything!” strategy doesn’t work very well with that, and it’s not exactly working very well for the goalies. Jaro’s obviously counting the days until he can sign _anywhere else_, and Greisser isn’t too happy with how things are going either.

Things aren’t going any better for Matt. While the Leafs are doing better as a team, Matt goes from having his ice time cut to being healthy scratched entirely, and the trade rumors swirling around him won’t stop.

Every reason Matt had to sign with the Leafs – going where he was wanted, being a regular part of the lineup instead of the thirteenth forward, knowing he would stay with a team rather than being traded or waived to who knows where – was gone. Halfway through the contract and things had fallen apart for him. 

If it was only going to work for two years, he could have had those two years with the Islanders. With Casey.

_I don’t blame you,_ Casey tries to tell him. And Matt’s just not having it.

_If I’d known this is how it was going to go, I wouldn’t have left._

_You couldn’t have known. They said they wanted you. They said you had a space and a role there._

Matt can’t actually disagree, however he might want to. _We should talk about this though, what if they trade me to Anaheim or whatever?_

_Then that’s what happens, I guess?_ Casey’s given up trying to guess what management is going to do, or why. _I mean, for all I know, they’re going to need so much cap space to re-sign Tavy that they send me off somewhere for picks so they don’t have to pay me. They could trade you to Anaheim and me to, like, Winnipeg, and we’d be in the same mess we’re in now. Worse, really._

\--

The Leafs make it into the playoffs, take the Bruins to seven games, and two periods into the seventh game it looks like they’re going to go on. Then the Bruins score four times in the third, flipping the score from 4-3 to 7-4, and that’s the end of the line for the Leafs.

Casey doesn’t bother going to the games, this year. It’s not like they’re going to actually play Matt, most of the time, anyway, so he doesn’t know what the point would be.

He still loves playing hockey, wouldn’t trade it for anything, but right now he just – doesn’t want to watch it, anymore. He needs a break.

\--

The rumors start.

The Leafs need to do something big, _really_ big, to take the next step. So they decide that they want to go with youth over experience in management as well as in roster, and that they don’t really need Lou Lamoriello working for them anymore. 

The Islanders need…well, everything really, but first of all they need their captain to sign.

Questions are asked that have no good answers. Islanders ownership and management hold a really weird and defensive press conference that nobody’s sure _what_ to make of.

Then a few weeks later, they bring Lamoriello in as President of Hockey Operations, and a few weeks after that, he fires most of the staff.

Meanwhile, playoffs continue, and the Capitals win the Stanley Cup and decide not to keep the coach that got them there. So the Islanders hire him.

John Tavares and his agent are “talking” is what everyone hears. They’re talking, and nothing is actually happening. 

Not until what the media is now calling the “courting” period. John’s lining up a long list of teams to talk to, but still everyone thinks he’s just going to come back, is going to want to finish what he started, especially with all the management upgrades and the new arena that is supposed to be built over the next few years.

Except for the people who think he’s going to want to go to Toronto, especially the people who are still mad at Steven Stamkos for not coming home like a good Toronto boy should and leading his home city to glory.

And sure, that’s what every boy in Toronto who plays hockey to begin with dreams of. Casey gets it, he was that boy too, but his dreams got more realistic fast because he’s not John Tavares or Steven Stamkos, he’s a defensive center who is never going to provide flashy, entertaining, high-scoring hockey to his teams. And he’s fine with that.

Apparently, in the end, John is fine with leaving the team he’s been the face of for nine years and captained for five years. Or – maybe “fine” isn’t fair, though Cal would know more about that than Casey would, by all accounts it was a really difficult decision for John to make. 

The important part is that John’s not coming back to the Islanders. He’s going to the Leafs. Matt swears that he wasn’t part of selling John on Toronto, especially when he expects he’s going to be leaving as soon as the Leafs can find a trading partner.

\--

“Honey, I’m home!” Matt calls cheerfully. 

It’s the best thing about the off-season, how they can go back to normal, go back to being together. 

But that’s – Matt’s too excited to actually say the words: _I’m home to stay, Lou traded to get me back here._

_Really? Oh thank God thank God thank God…_

_I don’t know what that means yet, what it’s going to look like with me on the team again, we can’t just expect everything to be like the last two years never happened._

_But you’re _here, _you’re home, you get to stay. And at least Lou isn’t going to throw you on waivers._

\--

It’s when Casey goes in to meet with his new coach that he finds out what it means.

“I remember what it was like, trying to coach against you three,” Coach Trotz says, laughing. “I’m so glad Lou was able to bring Marty back, because I think we’re going to have a hell of a good time with you guys all on my side of things.”

“Yeah, okay, I mean I didn’t want to assume anything, and I’m not going to just speak for Marty but I heard a lot about how it was for him, you know, last year, and that you guys wanting him back here means maybe he’ll be in the lineup more and…”

Trotz cuts him off. “I think you’re a lot more able to speak for him than you’re telling me right now.”

“I…yeah, you’re right. I don’t want to make a big deal, we get that it’s a business but…yeah. We’re not trying to hide it or anything, I mean, any more than you usually do because people don’t believe – I’ve got a friend on another team, he always says the CBA isn’t ever going to cover bonds or – or any of the rest of it.”

“Not until the average guy on the street would admit that, as you say, any of it exists. But that’s the next question I’ve got – how does that look for you guys, as a group?”

“Clutter’s the guy you’ll want to ask about that. He could probably kill all of us in our sleep with his brain, he knows that kind of stuff about all the guys better than anyone. You know us three and some of the other guys – Scotty, Leesie, probably Beau – we’re all good at, I guess you’d call it generating static? Throwing the other guys off their game, making it so they can’t think so well, and not just by chirping them or actually checking them?” Casey takes a deep breath and then adds, “Sometimes – this doesn’t always work – sometimes I can take the shock from it when someone’s hit hard, keep them from getting too badly hurt. Sometimes it happens without – without me thinking about it or trying to do it, and I end up being the guy who gets hurt.”

Trotz looks at Casey like he’s putting together a puzzle Casey just handled him – which, that’s fair, really. “How much control do you have over that?”

Casey laughs softly. “More than I used to? Sorry, I know that’s not much of an answer, I – in the moment, it happens or it doesn’t, I can try but it doesn’t always work. I’ve gotten better at not messing myself up as much, at least – I threw myself into shock, once, and I think Clutter would kill me if I ever did that again, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that pissed off.” He stops to think for a minute, then adds, “So this is really gonna be different, huh? I don’t think I’ve ever talked _this_ much psi shop with a coach since juniors.”

“Well, _that_ explains a lot,” Trotz says, obviously angry. “Yes, it’s going to be different.”

\--

When training camp starts, practice is _definitely_ different. Trotz does put the old line back together, and the first time they practice together all three of them are a little disoriented, like they are-but-aren’t seeing double and triple. “Yeah boys, that’ll happen. Practice through it, keep doing the drills until it clears up. Simple and clean.”

Casey notices their line isn’t the only one having that problem – both Ebs and Barzy look dizzy and sick, and eventually Trotz shakes his head and moves them to different lines. Casey picks up a flicker of _…precautionary, it’s safer this way…_ from Trotz and doesn’t ask further.

By the first game of the pre-season, it really is like Matt had never left.

_No. It’s better. We had to work harder on our own to make up for not having each other, and now we have that work _and _we have each other._

They have their usual assignments of defensive zone starts, and that thing that Casey calls “the static” is working – between the three of them, and Scotty’s good with this too when he’s one of the defensemen on the ice, passes connect, assignments of who is going to be where follow instinct and logic just imperfectly enough to keep the other team guessing, and their opponents play a step slow, a little bit disconnected from each other.

Cal scores their first goal, and maybe they celebrate it a little too hard for just the pre-season but it’s hard not to get carried away, because they’re _back._ They’re back, and right now it feels like they can do anything. 

And then the season starts for real. San Jose comes to Barclays, and the Islanders have as close to a perfect game as it’s possible to have. Casey’s line is better than it ever was before. Before, their job was to dig the puck out of trouble and then, unless the net was wide open, they were supposed to clear off the ice and send out the “real” goal-scorers in their place. But now everyone’s supposed to play defense, and everyone’s supposed to play offense, so they stay on the ice and finish the job. 

Casey gets his first assist _and_ his first goal, earlier in the season than he’d been used to the last couple years. Matt picks up a goal, too, on a weird line change. And Robin Lehner, his first game of the season, after everything he’d told first the team and then the world that he’d been through, shuts the Sharks out.

At the end of the game, they give Matt third star, probably as a “welcome back” gesture, and Robin gets first star and a building full of people shouting his name.

The whole team is supposed to just be terrible this year, a mess of has-beens and never-weres and disappointing early draft picks that didn’t live up to their potential. Casey’s reunited line was supposed to be mistaken nostalgia, the two extra years of hard aging plus the “throwback” style that wasn’t supposed to work in the modern NHL game making them useless and ineffective even if the crowd in the stands was happy to have “The Best Fourth Line In Hockey” back again.

Small sample size, the stats gurus would say. Too soon to say anything. Math was Casey’s best subject in school so he gets it, he can’t point to the game he’s just played and say that this is how the rest of the season is going to go. But he can use it as evidence that they don’t have to be a disaster, don’t have to be an embarrassment.

As far as he can tell, they’ve got this.

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings:
> 
> \- There's no on-screen sex in this one, just some faded-to-black, but there is a part with a bit of innuendo from someone who is being excessively nosy about a main character's sex life. The M and Choose Not To Warn ratings are _not_ for sex. However...
> 
> \- Lots of this fic involves concussions, head trauma, and how a telepath with healing abilities might be affected by that sort of problem, including when it doesn't happen to him personally, and including that he doesn't expect to be believed if he tries to get help.
> 
> \- There are other serious injuries as well, including a severe skate cut to someone's wrist that could have ended really badly.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[soundtrack] Center Cannot Hold](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21272792) by [somehowunbroken](https://archiveofourown.org/users/somehowunbroken/pseuds/somehowunbroken)


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